Halloween

In Australia, Halloween is given a cursory glance by most people and usually means a lame attempt at trick or treat by the odd pack of teenagers. Nobody buys lollies for them. We’d rather risk toilet paper in the mailbox or an egg on the drive. So it was with some amusement that I watched the spectacle of an American Halloween unfold. It starts at least 2-3 weeks before the 31^st. Weekend trips to a pumpkin patch are made to peruse and purchase the perfect pumpkin for carving. Houses are adorned in cobwebs, strangled farmers (or scarecrows I am not sure, still trying to work this out), broomsticks, ghouls, ghosts and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. Entire graveyards pop up on front lawns. It is like the Christmas lights only less cheerful.

A few days before the big day, I attended my first pumpkin carving party. I learnt to gut the inside and then use a stencil to carve out the face. It was great fun. A sort of grown up craft, only very serious. There were power tools such as drills and dremmels, scalpels, scrapers, punchers for marking the skin and little serrated knives for carving. So much science to what I had previously thought was only done by bored kids. Here is my attempt.

Homage to Momo....

Pumpkin carving underway...

 

Note to the uninitiated; after 3 days of being candlelit each evening the pumpkin develops a kind of large brown-spot measles and smells a bit like custard.

The big event is actually very civilised from the trick or treat perspective. There is no trick element. So if you forgot to buy ‘candy’ then the kids just go away looking disappointed but don’t egg your house. Amazing. You can even turn off the porch light and they don’t come begging. What is more amazing is that I never realised that Halloween is really an excuse for adults to don some fancy dress and get drunk. So the bars in town are packed with everyone from Sheldon (Big Bang Theory), Wilfred (Wilfred), the Jamaican bob sled team (?) and the Royal Tenenbaums to the usual smattering of mad scientists, zombies (very popular) and well, scantily clad chicks. The drinks were cheap, the music live and the people watching unparalleled. Big thanks to Kaylynn for making my first American Halloween the real deal.

 

As it turns out, cats like beer.

 

And here is the most mind blowing bit. They don’t eat pumpkin..... No pumpkin soup, roasted pumpkin or any of the plethora of savoury pumpkin recipes we make at home. They do make sweet pumpkin pie. But that comes out of a tin.